On Human Self Worth

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Book contents

About this book

Contempt

Godlessness

Delusions

Status

Nihilism

Greens

1. About this book

In terms of content, this is a work on philosophy that touches on
some political themes.

As for its overall style, it marks a departure from the strict
format I adopted for my previous books and
publications.

This is an experimental project. One chapter employs irony from
start to finish. Another follows from there to make a case
against it. There are passages that try to be more humorous or
“tongue in cheek”. Overall, this is a free form text that may or
may not succeed in the task of addressing the overarching theme
of human self worth.

This booklet is concerned with the set of narratives we formulate
about ourselves. The idea we have about the world and our place
in it. The values we adopt have implications on how we organise
society and determine the way we conduct our politics.

The various items that contribute to the broader tradition
underpinning human’s self evaluation may not be political in and
of themselves. It is their cumulative effect that is felt in the
domain of politics.

To this end, the reader is expected to connect the dots wherever
necessary. My interest is to elaborate on the general features
of the subject of inquiry, allowing space for a range of possible
conclusions.

Overall, On Human Self Worth is an attempt at something new in
my philosophical musings. I might build on top of it, if I feel
satisfied with this direction, or learn from its shortcomings and
adapt accordingly.

2. Contempt

I have yet to see an animal other than human that can treat its
immediate experience, its entire life, as inherently false,
decadent, and only worthy of contempt. Perhaps that is why we
think we are special. We can contemplate our role in the world.
Who we are, what we do, why, how, and what should be changed, if
anything. Human justifies this capacity as hinting at a higher
end, or some greater scheme about us compared to the rest of the
world. There is a role we have to fulfil, a destiny that is
ultimately linked to our very being as humans. And so, one
thinks that there is a sense of higher purpose to their presence
which is not limited to their life. And somewhere along those
lines, the theologian—or however we call people who talk about
god[s] and neighbouring concepts without ever furnishing any kind
of objectively verifiable proof—will insert their system of
unfounded claims about what the intentions of god[s] are.

We are special. Such is the basis of our reasoning. Only humans
can do philosophy, for instance. Only we possess the mental
capacity to grasp the higher order realities that are not
susceptible to the faculties of sense. We are unique among the
animals, for we can escape the narrow confines imposed by
biological necessity. Or so the thinking goes. We can fathom a
state of affairs where we are detached from the world. Aloof
from the fray of material needs and bodily experiences, we can
tap into an ultimate reality. Strip away all the
phenomenalities. We consider these deceitful, lies that
beguile our senses. The true reality, or the ultimate
destination we should strive for, has no place for them. That is
the end goal: to connect to the essence of the world. The choice
we believe we have is, therefore, quite simple in its basic
formulation: live as a beast by succumbing to your natural
inclinations, or actively suppress them in order to ascend to an
intellectual being. The spiritual self is the true self, the
immutable and eternal. Harness it to fulfil your role in this
world.

Such is the value we can attach to ourselves. We say we are
rational animals, conveniently downplaying the whole host of
behaviours that do not conform with that rigid ideal. We think
we are calculative and operate on the “margin of rationality”, as
the economist would put it, always optimising our choices. There
is imperfection and irrationality, biases, uncontrollable
emotions, decisions that are adopted without complete knowledge
of things—for is there a single domain where we claim complete
knowledge of? These do not change the narrative of our
exceptional status. We can overcome them, so long as we keep
sight of this narrow subset of human experience that we consider
so important.

But there is disagreement amount the proponents of human
exceptionalism as to what the differentiating factor is. Those
who do not place disproportionate value on human reason find
something else to venerate. It goes by various names, such as
the “soul”, the “spirit”. These can be cultivated in a variety
of ways other than what we associate with rationality, in order
to attain the same objective of ascendance.

That is a distinction between rationalists and spiritualists,
whose midpoint is the thesis of human beings as the chosen ones.
Human as an entity sui generis.

The first issue I see with such exceptionalism is ontological
dualism. The mind, the soul, the spirit, or whatever it is that
is responsible for reasonableness and/or spirituality is treated
as a distinct entity from the rest of the body. The latter is
the domain of the bestial. Our ephemeral self. The instincts,
the emotions, the irrationality. Whereas our true self is
detachable from the body. It can be freed from it.

The specifics of the narrative vary, depending on the tradition
concerned. Is it not bizarre though, that whatever the details
we have no indication whatsoever of some other ‘essence’ that is
somehow intertwined with our base being? Our capacity to think
clearly is a function of our body’s inner processes and of its
health. If you do not nourish yourself properly over an extended
period of time, you will not be able to think correctly. If you
feel pain, that is all you care about. Are you delirious in
fear? Forget about plotting the most precise course of action.
If you get knocked on the head you might stop thinking the same
way you could before. An injury is the definition of being
affected by this world. You can claim that rocks are somehow
fake and not worthy of ‘real’ experience. Fair enough, note
though that a phenomenality that smacks you on the forehead can
still send you to the hospital.

In the same vein, we have no indication of the soul as a distinct
domain of agency, let alone a separate ‘essence’. Whatever the
particularities of the narrative, it builds on the presumption of
a transcendent soul, simply working backwards from a conclusion.
Which is to say that it is dogmatic. So, you claim that the soul
transcends the rules of this world and that it is eternal? And
yet, here it is, ‘trapped’ as it were inside a human body, which
is to say that it is, after all, bound by a subset of the rules
of this world. For the body is a natural system, a subsystem
within the broader ecosystem.

You want to emancipate your soul by performing all those rituals
or live life in a certain way. There may be benefits to that
mode of living, such as mental health. Do it! But the very claim
that the transcendent is at once above this world and yet
decisively confined to the secular or the cosmic is absurd. If
it is transcendent, how do you measure it? How can you possibly
claim it is ‘there’. For if it is somewhere, then by
definition it occurs within space. If, on the other hand, it is
just a thought of ours, then how can we even insist on the notion
that it is bound to the body?

The more you delve into the inner contradictions the more likely
it is to encounter mysticism.

As a first line of defence comes the tactic of belittling us
compared to some exalted being, which itself is unverifiable. We
are too foolish to understand the grand design. Throw in some
allusion to our ape minds for good measure. It is hubris to use
our logic and our faculties of sense as means of debunking those
views of the world. Just believe and you will see the way. At
which point you single out the double standard whereby their
claims are not to be questioned but the sceptic’s argument must
always be refuted by the very inability of human beings to grasp
the ‘truth’. Then, when the mystics are pressed on their
epistemological inconsistencies they resort to propositions of
the sort “god works in mysterious ways”. Looks aporetic on the
surface, but actually clings on to a well defined set of beliefs.
Perhaps the very antithesis of inquisitiveness.

As a second issue with the schools of thought that propound
notions of human exceptionalism, I would suggest that perhaps our
claims about the soul, the true self, immortality, all trace
their roots to biology. They are perhaps rendering lucid a base
instinct. Now this is rampant speculation from my side and no
more that a hypothesis that would need to be tested, but here it
is: what if our survival instinct is in fact taking over our
thinking processes, trying to make sure that we survive no matter
what? And what if, by extension, the idea that we can live
forever in some shape or form is but the impression of
rationality/spirituality derived from instinct? Again, this is
speculation that would need to be backed up or dismissed by a
fully fledged research programme. So I continue: if we are hard
wired to survive, and if this drive is perceived in a different
form as pure reasonableness or spiritual enlightenment, then
perhaps the very notion of rationality/spirituality and of the
true self is but a heap of misunderstandings or illusions.

Everything in this world is subject to probabilistic cause and
effect. Our bodies—mind included—are dynamically influenced and
determined by their internal processes as well as stimuli
external to them. This complex interplay produces thoughts and
triggers for action, which among others lead to new learned
experiences and patterns of adaptation, and so on. Maybe—just
maybe—we are led by our instincts to think of ourselves as
operating free from biological impulses, in the same way the dog
impulsively gives chase to the ball thinking it is desirable to
run after the ‘prey’ even after it knows that the ball is, in
fact, a toy. Perhaps then, the notion of finding our true self
is an exercise in futility.

We can only be our nature—there is no choice involved. Choice
concerns what we could consider as second order items. The
‘essence’, what we are made of, remains outside our reach. We
cannot choose to be non-human or to pick and choose the part of
humanity we want, such as beings humans but forgoing the need to
eat and sleep.

My point is that we need to gather findings, results that are
reproducible in a manner that is objective. Else we add to the
echo chamber, perpetuate a tradition just because we find solace
in its teachings.

Speaking of solace, is not fear a byproduct, or somehow linked to
the survival instinct? Why are we afraid of things, if not
because they might threaten our existence either fatally or
partially by exposing us to a potential injury? Fear is a
manifestation of the struggle for survival. Again, this should
be put to the test, such as to see if plants feel fear and adapt
their behaviour accordingly.

If all my speculation would translate into a fully fledged
research project, I would suggest that we delve into this notion
of consoling our soul, of ataraxia, or whatnot. Is it
emancipation from whatever temptation or power holds us hostage
to our base instincts? Or are we just desperately seeking
answers as a means of alleviating our existential fear? Anything
will do, regardless of its correspondence to the actuality of
things. Just give a plausible answer, which all too often
delivers us the nostrums of mysticism.

The third issue with human exceptionalism is its propensity
for nihilism. Everything in this world is framed as an illusion
of sorts. And people are, by default, mere animals that have
yet to ascend. They might have the potential to see the light,
though they are nowhere near it in their natural state. It
follows that all that happens in this world, our politics, the
economy, culture and sport, are lesser activities. They do not,
in and of themselves, take us to this supposed next level. They
are distractions or, at best, activities with secondary values.
No wonder many of those harbouring contempt for the world argue
for withdrawing from society in pursuit of enlightenment.

Nihilism is the dark side, if you will, of idealism. Or rather
of the conflation between the ideal and the actual. Idealists of
this sort have a very stylised view of how the world ought to be.
It is not corresponding to things as they are. It is a product
of their prior exceptionalism. The domain of the god[s], the
eternal soul, human’s capacity to ascend, the falsehoods of
phenomenality. If you only want ideal beauty, then everyone out
there is ugly. The ideal is an abstraction, derived by tracing
the common in the multitude of phenomena. Abstractions are
products of thought. And products of thought can be shared
between humans because we have the same biology. Just as the
design of our hearts, or lungs, or limbs is the same, so are the
basic functions of the mind. There are differences. Differences
of degree, not category.

The misguided idealist of the sort here considered will insist on
attaining the abstract. They believe their obstinacy will reify
their imaginary state of affairs. Eventually, a tension arises
between expectation and results. Rather than recognising the
original confusion between the ideal and the real as the source
of the problem, it is the world that has to bear the brunt of the
blame. This world which is fake, hypocritical, decadent… This
world that only keeps the soul/spirit/mind/whatever chained to an
inferior reality. Thus comes nihilism. There is nothing real or
worthy in anything human does: pleasures of the body are bad,
because the body is the soul’s prison, the source of base
instincts, etc. Interest in politics is inherently misguided
because “all politicians are the same” and the world is corrupt
and evil. Besides, why bother changing your immediate life when
it is a “false life” after all? And so the nihilist will expound
on their ideals and insist that what they care about is a true
reality. In the meantime, they become the most reflexive type of
ultra-conservative, reverse apologists of the established order
and of anti-research. “Reverse apologists” in the sense that
their intention is not that of justifying the status quo, but
that their behaviour contributes to that end regardless.

If life in this world is a lie, why bother with a fairer
distribution of resources, peace within the family, mutual
understanding between cultures, or whatnot. Why care about the
ecosystem if, ultimately, it too is an idol; at best a fake
representation of reality? There can be no qualitative
difference between annihilating all the species and fighting to
preserve the ecosystem’s balance if there is nothing worthy
in this world. And the same can be said about all normative
issues that humans have to deal with in their collective life.
In politics, that is.

The nihilists commit the error of using the ideal as the enemy,
rather than the guide, of the good, of the realisable. Maybe
they are not as crude. They might become selective nihilists,
misanthropes for instance where they blame humanity for
everything that is bad while exalting “mother nature” for all
that is good. And where does humanity come from, if not nature?
The answer to this is predictably theological. In the Western
tradition evil is attributed to “free will”, which is another one
of those baseless assertions like dualism and the transcendent
soul, afterlife, etc.

Free will, in its purest form, is the claim that there is at
least a kernel of human self—this notorious “true self”—that is
not bound by anything and only operates in accordance with its
own devices. What we do is out our own volition. There are no
biological underpinnings, no environmental stimuli, no social,
cultural, historical artefacts that inform our judgement. This
is the myth of the decontextualised human, a being in itself,
self contained, detached from the world, yet somehow strictly
confined to it. Again, one can trace hints of dualism.

I am very much sceptical of this mumbo jumbo. No doubt, it is a
powerful belief. See, here I type this. I just did it because
I decided to. My will, my rules. Ha! But what if what we
conceive as freedom is but the expression—and inward
impression—of a dynamic probabilistic function of the interplay
between internal processes and external stimuli? What if typing
this is something that the complex underlying processes of my
being seeks and gets feedback from to reinvigorate the cycle?
That would not be the kind of transcendent free will of Western
mythos, but another common phenomenon—or concatenation thereof—of
this world.

Probabilistic cause and effect. There is nothing transcendental,
truer, or special about it.

3. Godlessness

I am an agnostic. But let us start from another point.

In my everyday life I am atheistic. I practice no rituals; do not
attach special, ‘mystical’ value to items; never think that
certain moves, words, thoughts, circumstances, signs, and the
like, have any connection to some ostensible “higher being”. My
quotidian experience is not influenced or governed by beliefs of
something ‘other’.

And I am similarly ‘atheistic’—if I may broaden the term—towards
all the expected formalities of our time. I do not keep track of
birthdays, anniversaries, the “International Day of [insert
theme]”, and whatnot. Today is another day. The Earth is still
orbiting the Sun. Sure, that does not give me any social points,
but who cares anyway?

I live like an animal, say, a dog. Canines react to stimuli.
They are hungry, happy, excited, scared, in relation to some
phenomenon that may be internal, external, or [most likely] a
feedback loop between the two. I just do what is within my
power, what my nature renders possible. Those who talk about
spirits, ethereal beings and the like, those who when pressed to
prove their points inevitably muse about the ineffable and
neighbouring concepts, will accuse me of ‘materialism’; maybe
even of disrespect for my audacity to think that I, a mere human,
can defy the divine.

Atheists are certain that there is no higher being whatsoever.
Which is unacceptable, as they put forward a positive proposition
that is not objectively verifiable. In that sense, they are
epistemologically equivalent to the theists. They too have no
proof, other than tradition, widespread superstitions, and
stories that blend a kernel of truth, say a meteorological event,
with sheer fantasy.

Agnosticism is the view that we remain aporetic towards
theological propositions. We can neither approve nor disprove
them. We do not know. However, agnosticism is not to be
conflated with the superficially compromising attitude of many
eminent scientists: “science does its job, while religion has a
moral role to play”.

No, I am sorry! We are not friends any more. That is just a
shrewd way of not turning fanatics against you. Tactically sound,
but a spurious statement nonetheless. For if we can
neither prove nor disprove the claims of theology, then it
follows that religions and quasi-religious groups are
overreaching. They are abusing their power. They do make
positive statements. They do, indeed, claim to have answers and
be certain of things—usually of all things that trouble us.

If agnosticism is to be upheld, then religions cannot possibly be
anything other than cultural-historical constructs with a
decisively political function. Let us discuss them in the same
vein as all social structures and institutions. If they are
deemed useful or surplus to requirements is a matter of value
judgements within the domain of interpersonal experience. In
terms of their content, however, they speak nonsense. No
religion has ever objectively substantiated its claims. None of
the world’s major religions has furnished proof covering the
totality of their propositions.

Which is also why agnosticism should not be misunderstood as
passive indifference, as “everything goes”.

I will return to the point of the “moral role”, after elaborating
on positive statements in general. You see, agnosticism does not
really claim anything new. It simply observes the fact that there
are many religions and conflicting accounts of theology, while
there is no mechanism of ever resolving the disputes (fire and
steel notwithstanding). Some say there is one god, even though
they are not united on what that really means. Others suggest
that there is a plurality of gods. Then there is a whole host of
spirits that rank below god[s] but still partake of divinity.
Some are good, others are evil, or whatever the binary/spectrum
is. They have passions and feelings, mood swings even, and they
draw up plans for various courses of action in pursuit of their
ends. Furthermore, there are all sorts of views on the origins
of the world, the role of humanity in it, the life of human
beings now and in eternity. And so on.

Agnostics take account of this corpus of work to state the
obvious: controversy implies unresolved tensions about the thing
being studied. It is not clear what the object is. There is
fundamental disagreement about what should be discussed and the
method to be used. Agnostics do what every sceptic does: they
conclude that we need more work before we can arrive at a
satisfactory starting point, let alone a comprehensive
framework. In this case, we would need to reach a broad
consensus on the thing being studied, as well as agree on a
method that would lead us to objective ways of approaching it.
Until then, the agnostic can only state the readily apparent fact
that when theology is taken as a whole, it shows that we do not
know anything about it.

Thus, unlike the atheist, the agnostic remains open to the
possibility that we might come to the point where we can acquire
knowledge in this domain. It cannot be evaluated in prior,
without clear reasons as to why. Atheism is a dogma similar to
the Academic Sceptics of yore: they were certain that they did
not know, knowledge being an unreachable Ideal and all that.
Yet, certainty of not knowing is knowledge in itself, which would
disprove the very notion of knowledge being unattainable. But I
digress.

To me, atheism only makes sense as a term that describes certain
types of lifestyle, such as my own: the life of a dog. It is not
philosophy: just a set of modes of living that do not rely on any
kind of mysticism. Live like an animal, for that is what humans
are. Our intelligence is a difference of degree, not category
when compared to the rest of the species.

Whereas agnosticism is a philosophical statement. And
philosophical statements are essentially analytical propositions,
i.e. do not really tell us anything new, other than dissecting
the stock of knowledge—or “justified true beliefs”, if you
will—we have already accumulated to discern its abstract
structure and any possible constants therein. Whatever findings
the philosopher may come up with are already intrinsic to the
items of inquiry.

Think of it like observing a painting at a museum. Your first
impression gives you a general idea. Upon second look you start
seeing some finer points, the direction of the strokes, the
thickness of the brush, the hues, the texture. And the more you
study, the more you discover, to the point where your final view
of the painting has little in common with your original
impression. All while the work of art remains constant. That is
analysis.

Philosophy is an analytical venture. Here is a four-fold rule of
thumb for identifying charlatans:

They claim something about the world that cannot be tested or
studied in an objective way. “This is how things stand and I
know because reasons“. To support their claims, they may
even synthesise between vastly different traditions or fields
of endeavour, often picking and choosing the parts of science
that superficially support their case.

They allude to philosophy, as a proxy for authoritative
wisdom, either claiming they are philosophers themselves, or
selectively interpreting the words of some well-known thinker
who may remotely give credence to their views.

They change the criteria when pressed on a core tenet of
theirs. Such as that their truth being ineffable, the
absolute ‘other’, or just the oft-cited “god acts in
mysterious ways”. Otherwise they attack your person: who
are you to question the divine?“Our feeble mind cannot
comprehend the workings of god[s]”, and similarly convenient
tricks of anti-science or anti-dialectic.

They treat subjective experiences as equivalent to universal
truths and take offence at any hint that subjectivity is
neither sufficient nor reliable. The usual defence is that
“well, I am not crazy!” or “how can you prove that I did
not have these experiences?”. Which either attempt to end
the discussion or force you to disprove them.

Making positive statements means bearing the burden of proof. You
talk about the will of the divine? How god[s] bestowed upon you
the power you wield, which further justifies your special status
in the social order. And so on. How about you prove all this? Oh,
blasphemy! I know, I know…

Though this is exactly what we do with everything in life. We ask
for evidence. Your partner in life demands confirmation of your
love on what seems like an hourly basis. You can’t just get away
with empty statements.

Here is more: a traveller went to the village on the other side
of the mountain. They stayed there for a while, presumably
because they had a good time. Upon returning, they raved about
the otherworldly crops and animals those people have. Bananas
that can be pealed off and on. Donkeys that take flight and
recite poetry. Mice that turn down invitations to infest your
household. Tomatoes that are all kids find tasty. Sugar that is
good for your health, especially when consumed in great doses.
In short, the traveller regaled us with all those wondrous
stories. And we threw a party to indulge in the amusement. Then
at the height of it all, this one person who apparently detests
fun addresses the traveller: why didn’t you bring any specimen?
How about we go fetch some for ourselves? Money is not an issue.
Did you at least capture any video footage so that we can see for
ourselves in the meantime? You know what kind of person asks
these questions: a nag! For it is annoying to have to prove such
nice stories.

Same with all positive propositions: they are nonsensical for as
long as it is impossible to test and/or examine them objectively.

With that noted, let me return to the scientist qua infamous
apologist of the status quo. This cliché that religion has to
stay in place in order to provide moral guidance to the masses.
Such a blatant double standard by people who make a living off of
the scientific method! Think, if you will, what would happen if
courts of justice would no longer care about facts. What kind of
justice would they deliver? The judge ought to be a sceptic, only
arriving at a judgement after examining the available evidence.
Without facts there is no adjudication of the case.

And the same is true for everything. We trust engineers to build
boats that do not sink, or airplanes that stay aloft. And we
expect consistency of results that approaches near perfection.
Performance, which is to say, a verifiable state of affairs, is
the measure by which we decide whether to trust their work or
not. Even in politics, the domain where countless opportunists
have made a successful career, people ultimately care about the
truth. Over the long term lies are exposed by reality—and
societies suffer the consequences.

Our entire collective experience rests on verifiability. And yet,
those who are supposed to be champions of a method that yields
verifiable results mindlessly repeat this much-touted platitude
that organised religion—a social class whose power rests on
unverifiable claims and baseless assumptions—has a tutelary role
in our society. It is better they remain silent if they have not
thought things through. Because we live in an era where science
is exalted as a new god of sorts. The nuance is lost, the
methodological caveats are dismissed as pedantic details.
“Scientists prove that [insert supposed certain truth]” is the
kind of news item you get in every media outlet.

The scientist must assume the responsibility their role entails.
They need to be extra careful, else the pervasive scientism of
our times will twist their words in support of profoundly
anti-scientific ends. If, however, the scientist wishes to speak
their mind, they can do so provided they make it explicit they do
not opine in their capacity as a scientist, nor do they represent
science as a whole. It just their opinion and should be taken as
such, however whimsical it may be.

Some never learn though and will go to great lengths to defend
their frivolous attitude. It is common to hear eminent scientists
dismiss philosophy altogether, while simultaneously holding some
ridiculous view about an item outside their narrow field of
expertise. The scientist who shows unshakeable conviction about
unverifiable theories is lauded as a genius, the philosopher who
recommends a rethink and to exercise caution is publicly
ridiculed as absent-minded and an armchair commentator, deprived
of funding, forced out of universities because of their
uselessness, put in the same league as astrologists and
theologians, etc.

The very fact that the scientist thinks they have all the answers
is a clear sign why they still need a philosopher by their side.
Make their research interdisciplinary. Inject some
self criticism and restraint. For those scientists are like
balloons filled with helium. If you let them loose, there is no
telling where they will go.

I guess, sometimes, when all is said and done, the best kind of
philosophy is this: oh, $#@% off!

4. Delusions

Just to err on the side of caution, let me preface this with a
“Not Safe For Work” notice. Do not start reading out loud. Doubly
so if your colleagues are people of esteem, with high moral
values.

You were hesitant at first, thinking about the longer term
implications. But now that you had sex are expecting a wedding
ring. Okay, it may be a bit too early for marriage, but you are
already looking for some definitive proof of commitment to the
relationship. You muse about true love, “now and ever after”,
summer wine, the aroma of roses, the sunset’s reflections in the
water, and all the other tropes of tradition and romantic poetry.

I have some bad news for you. Love is not transcendent. It
lasts for as long as it does. It might be for a night, a month,
a few years, or a lifetime. That is dependent on circumstances,
ultimately tracing their cause to biology. You see, physical
attraction is the epiphenomenon. What is actually set in motion
is a series of events that change the degrees of certain
substances in the body in relation to learned patterns of social
interaction. I defer to chemists and psychologists for the
details. What basically appears to be the case is that we
experience a change in our body’s equilibrium, which throws us
off balance, as it were, and we start perceiving things in a
distorted way; seeing the other with rose-tainted glasses.

You know that feeling when you first think of someone as
beautiful, kind-hearted, sweet, and the like. There are no
flaws. Love at first sight is the equivalent of poor eyesight. It is
akin to feeling angry: you do not think clearly, your perception
is twisted. The beautified view changes after a while, once the
inner equilibrium is restored. Prima facie you were attractive.
Now that normality has returned other fields of endeavour demand
attention.

Love is typically thought of as a permanent feeling. Whereas
love at first sight is considered a passion. To its credit,
this distinction recognises the physical impulse that is a
passion. Perhaps, then, permanent love is a learned passion. An
adaptation to what once was the abnormal and has now become the
new normal.

At any rate, these things happen outside our control. Do not
fool yourself. Your mood is contingent on your chemistry. You
cannot just fall in love if there is no underlying reaction that
triggers the concatenation of events we understand as, or
associate with, affection.

It is pointless to speak of the natural condition in terms of
good or bad. It is. The normative value we attach to it does
not affect it. A society may unanimously decide to banish
breathing, out of concern for the carbon it emits or the oxygen
it consumes. Good for them to care about such things. The only
problem is that nature is mind-independent. We can only
influence those items that are contingent on human thought and
action; on human institution. The rest is outside the reach of
our conventions.

Back to love and its meta-narratives. We have forced ourselves
into this social mould where we pretend to love once. Similar
to the futile task of prohibiting the respiratory system, our
pretenses about love’s pureness will eventually be confronted
with reality. At which point we call the lawyer to prepare the
paperwork for the divorce.

If a great number of marriages break up, and if those who remain
in tact are for reasons other than pure love, then we might as
well not exert this immense pressure on ourselves. Yes, I am
talking about taking love at face value. Living the moment.

Of course, there are good reasons not to be frivolous and to have
checks in place; reasons that relate to social organisation,
public health and welfare, or else politics. For instance, it
would be irresponsible to impregnate women and let them face
motherhood on their own. They would suffer. The children would
have a hard time. Society would struggle to cope with the likely
surplus of orphans, and so on.

But that is not the point here. I am referring to the pretenses
we maintain about an element of human relationships that is
presumed as eternal. If it really is, then it does not need to
be instituted as such. So it is not. And we tacitly acknowledge
that. For while we preach the ostensible transcendence of true
love we also meticulously take all necessary measures to treat it
just like any other possession: subject to constraints that
create scarcity, or else exclusivity.

Striped of its theological underpinnings, marriage is an
institution that entails rights and obligations. It is a
cultural-legal instrument that works just like property rights.
At best, a mutual claim of ownership. At worst, guarantees for
sex on demand by the dominant party to the relationship.

Then there is the dishonesty towards ourselves, which we consider
part of our moral code. When you are not in a relationship it is
permissible to follow your biology. You feel attraction and act
accordingly, perhaps within the confines of what is socially
permissible, though such constraints can be defied with ease.
But here is the catch: nature does not care about social norms.
You will continue to feel attraction even after you engage in a
relationship. Maybe to a lesser degree because you feel more
attracted to your original/current love. Yet the point stands.
Your body did not change all of a sudden, just because you
adopted this misbegotten notion that love falls within the domain
of private property.

You know what else is outside our control, just because nature
does not care about our vanity? Findings ways to satisfy the
instincts, such as by conforming to the role of the romantic
lover until you get laid. For that is what happens all the
time. Do you really believe that you dinned together out of a
common gastronomical interest that is an end in itself? Or that
you spent half an hour looking at the swans in the pond due to an
inclination for ornithology or something? How about those sudden
shifts in music preferences and the newfound interests in
literature and cinematography? Yes, you guessed it.

Now let me generalise a bit, as this article is actually not
about your sexual adventures. I do not care about you, nor will
I come to your party. Where I am going with this is at the
tendency human has to consistently entertain false beliefs,
despite piles of evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, it is
baffling how we find it desirable to maintain moral rules that
directly contradict our nature.

Love is not the only area where we prefer to remain delusional.
Think about the “true patriot” who dies on the battlefield to
protect the establishment, expecting the afterlife as a reward as
well as post-death recognition of their heroism. How convenient
it must be for the extractive classes to perpetuate this idea
that it is desirable to disregard present injustices for a vastly
superior life after life—and heroes reserve a special spot there.
What? You say it is an unverifiable promise? An expedient lie
just to get things done and move on? Of course it is. Like
claiming that you will 100% love someone for eternity and you
will have eyes for no other. Which is true until the day it is
not.

I would speculate that the fundamental reason for maintaining
this stance is our commitment to a rather strong version of free
will. You act out of your own volition and must assume
responsibility for the consequences of your actions. The
stronger the type of free will a society believes in, the greater
the responsibility each choice carries. Absolute freedom entails
absolute responsibility; the reverse of which is absolute
punishment. The reason I make this connection is because we
insist on preserving the perverse elements of our moral code.
The belief is that we can defy nature exactly because of our free
will and, therefore, there can be no constraints on what our
morality may demand.

Free will is perceived as this bastion of true self that kind of
toils against the forces of the natural order, the temptations,
the instincts, to maintain its truthfulness. Which is to say
that free will is considered transcendent and that you are your
true self regardless of the world around you. Variants of this
worldview are the theories about the body-soul divide, the
eternity of the soul, reincarnation, the afterlife, and so on.

Yet there is no indication whatsoever that there is a kernel of
true self that is immune to the forces of probabilistic cause and
effect. This is just whimsy perpetuated through the
centuries.

Let’s get naive determinism out of the way: the inattentive
observer thinks that lighting a match and throwing it in a hay
stack is the cause of the resulting fire. In fact, there is a
whole host of factors at play, such as the level of humidity in
the local atmosphere, the speed of the wind, the condition of the
hay and of the match so that both are good fire conductors (e.g.
they are not wet), and so on.

Complex systems cannot be understood in simplistic linear terms
of A causes B. Same with humans. We are a function of internal
processes and external stimuli. The internal/external divide is
conceptual, for the system of interlinked factors we conceive as
human organism is but a set of emergent subsystems within the
broader ecosystem, and so on. We may not be able to draw a
straight line from the original cause to the epiphenomenon, say,
the feeling of love. But we can study these interconnected
variables to discern patterns and draw further conclusions. They
are there, not in some spurious ‘domain’ of the transcendent.

What we perceive as free will, the ability to choose and plan
ahead, might just as well be a dynamic function of feedback loops
with possible outcomes traced to said subsystems, which is not
unique to humans as it is found in animals and even plants. At
any rate, that is a matter of objective research, not mystical
mumbo jumbo.

I call this bundle of beliefs on the ostensible transcendence of
self, the “decontextualised human”. Conceived as a being as
such, perhaps trapped within an ephemeral vessel, but an absolute
self nonetheless that is not decisively influenced, indeed
moulded and determined, by their environment. In this case, the
environment also includes human relations, for they too present
external stimuli. The decontextualised human is one of our
society’s most deep seated convictions, underpinning everything
from social policy, to the content of laws, the way courts
deliver justice, and prisons are organised.

Reconsidering our values would do us good. Reduce the disconnect
between who we are and who we think we are. No more stressing
about our inability to control forces that exist outside the
purview of our “free will” or social order in general. No need
to maintain this facade of righteousness, the underlying
hypocrisy of much of our moral code and values.

Oh, you think you committed the same sin again. You must be
admonished for your immorality! But what if the very notion of
considering a natural condition sinful is the problem in the
first place?

Nature is. There is no good-bad divide therein. A realignment of
priorities and beliefs is in order.

5. Status

I am elated to be part of this society. I feel honoured to be one
of them. People here are righteous and honest. Their actions are
perfectly aligned with their exhortations about the propriety of
certain kinds of behaviour. They are fully devoted to this belief
of theirs that material things are ephemeral and that only the
spirit matters. Sometimes they call it “mind” or “soul”. We
understand it through this inner agency of willfulness.
Basically, it amounts to this true self we all have. This
transcendent presence that sets us apart from beasts, plants, and
the rest of the true self’s prison cell—what we call “nature”.
They are refined people. As their teachings go, they do not
attach value to their possessions, nor do they compete for scarce
resources. These are pointless activities of lesser cultures. My
people are different. They truly have ascended, as their
tradition demands. Now they just wait to move on the next domain
of existence.

There are many personas in this social milieu that I venerate.
One that stood out recently is the PhD holder. That translates
into Philosophy Doctor in case you thought something funny.
They stand up to this title. Their ability is peerless. Their
knowledge vast. All of their statements are precise, insightful,
and unambiguous. Their intentions pure. I find it remarkable how
higher education, with the seemingly disproportionate value it
attaches to administrivia, can turn an ordinary bloke into such a
fantastic specimen of higher intellect. It truly is a wonder,
akin to training a monkey into becoming a master dialectician in
the mould of Socrates.

As an aside, one should not use the term “administrivia”. It
might carry negative connotations. We do not want to imply that
formal education has a misplaced sense of pride and duty in its
cumbersome bureaucracy. A more appropriate description is
“criteria of excellence”. They ensure that fraudsters are kept
away from universities.

Take, for example, the case of this random fellow who submitted
their website as proof of their language skills. Years of writing
on different topics. As if that even comes close to having a
language certificate! Thankfully, the people in charge outright
reject the uncertified. They even have programs in place where it
is impossible to even submit something that would be subject to
qualitative assessment. Brilliant! Fraudsters have all sorts of
tricks up their sleeve. They might cheat their way into a
Doctorate. That would be the equivalent of poisoning the well.

So no more “administrivia”. My mistake.

Education of that highest order deserves all the accolades it can
get. For it delivers splendidly on its sole objective of
emancipating people from ignorance and prejudice. Riches and
reputation are petty concerns among ignoramuses.

I would argue that we are in the PhD holder’s debt for their
service to society. They instruct the rest of us. Their mere
presence inspires us to the point where we need not act for
ourselves.

Here is a case in point: a hotly contested topic is discussed on
TV. By the by, “TV” in this society signifies “True Vision”,
enlightenment. It has nothing in common with the junk food of
information diet other peoples get from their television. Again,
this society is different. Back to the story then. Politics is
inherently controversial. We all have our views and
predispositions. Thankfully, there is the Philosophy Doctor to
resolve the tensions; tensions caused by ignorance. Their input
in the discussion is catalytic. They tell us their opinion and,
bam, as if by magic, we all assume this to be the default view.

And I note this phenomenon because there can be no other
explanation as to why years of study equip one to state the
conventional wisdom in slightly different terms. It must be that
we retroactively change our view to match that of the Philosophy
Doctor. It cannot possibly be that they are just acting as the
intellectual vanguard of the establishment. No, that does not
befit an exalted intellectual agent such as the PhD holder you
see on TrueVision.

And this why I truly love this society and would do everything
within my power to be of service to it. Here social status is not
about pretences and titles. It is about merit. We respect the
Philosophy Doctor. Period. It is not because of their
awe-inspiring CV, remarkable though it may be. It also has
nothing to do with their esoteric terminology and tangle of
conflicting meanings that can only hint at profoundness. Don’t
be silly. We only value their wisdom, the very essence of their
Doctorate. For that is what education endowed them with: not
status, just the prowess, nimbleness, and clarity of mind.

Now, to be perfectly honest, there are some naysayers, a fringe
group, who are suspicious of such personas. They claim that a PhD
is only tangentially about science. Most of it has to do with
conditions outside the realm of philosophy and research. Such as
competition within the academic world. Funding and their economic
starting point. Their conformity with the rules, norms and
expectations of the powers that be. Their cultural background and
how that influences people who vouch for them. And so on. Those
despicable nihilists even have the temerity to suggest that they
respect Philosophy Doctors—Philosophy Doctors—only after they
have proven their intellectual worth, never in advance. In other
words, they do not care about the title; the title that the
highest and most noble of educations has bestowed upon them!!!

Such blasphemy. Fortunately, I am not part of that lot. I try to
emulate the good people in my society. The honourable folks.
Learn from them all the secrets of proper living. Currently, I am
working on this unique skill where you mean something completely
different than what you state. Usually the exact opposite. That
way you can preach humbleness, humility, simple life, and the
like, while ignoring the minutiae, such as the fact that you have
the most expensive car possible—and not just one—, or that you
accrue material possessions with unparalleled obsession, or even
that you boast about your achievements in the workplace, by words
and/or actions, and insist that your wealth is proof of your
merit.

This is the best aspect of this society. It knows where its
values are: in what you say about yourself, not who you are.
Hence my infatuation with its Philosophy Doctors on TV. All of
them! This society has decided to attach a special value to
their very status as PhD holders. That is what matters. Ignore
the naysayers. Everything they do is in vein, like having a
healthy meal at a fast food restaurant.

The Philosophy Doctor speaks the truth. We retrofit our
conventional wisdom to it. And then the naysayers interpret this
in reverse, i.e. that, by and large, the PhDs are just parrots of
their paymasters or slightly less crude ignoramuses who repeat in
chorus the absurdities of some greater, more respectful,
ignoramus. Ha! How foolish can you be to not see the obvious.
The title is no coincidence. They truly are Philosophy Doctors
and they guide us on the path to intellectual ascendance.

To this end, I fully endorse this society’s binary thinking about
intellectual achievements. You do not have a PhD? Then you
obviously are an idiot, an oaf, a charlatan, a dishonourable
opportunist, and must also be a malevolent person and an
eccentric, who defies the zeitgeist and who openly questions the
criteria of excellence this society has put in place. You do not
hold a PhD, ergo you are no Philosophy Doctor. You are a
misguided moron for thinking that your opinion matters without
the rubber stamp of authority. You are pathetic, as you have
chosen to speak your mind despite the fact that you are not a
Philosophy Doctor and cannot possibly have anything meaningful to
add to society’s stock of knowledge. Shut up and accept what
your ability—your merit—renders possible. Toil at the
sweatshop for hours on end. No, no talk. No thinking. You
cannot be ruminative. Get up and do something. One, two, one,
two, one, two. Up, down, sit, stay, heel. Good.

I am the greatest proponent of this society and will answer the
call to defend it with alacrity. Being a hero for this lot is a
great achievement. It perpetuates it. And I would do that. For I
truly believe that the establishment’s power is derived solely
from their inner superiority. Such meritocracy has to be upheld
at all costs. Less worthy beings, such as myself, who cannot
fully grasp the workings of this society can at least perform the
honourable task of sacrificing themselves for the rest to be
allowed the freedom to advance the most enlightened of
civilisations.

Oh, but I cannot help but be reminded of those naysayers,
insignificant though they may be. Their call is like a siren’s
song. Alluring, yet deceitful. They put up those posts: “heavy
burdens on broader shoulders”, “break the symbiosis between the
state and the oligopolies”, “bring back the real bread”,
“homeland presupposes justice”, “patents engender trolling, not
innovation”, and similar fancies.

But I know better because I heard on TrueVision a Philosophy
Doctor who elaborated at length about the virtues of this
society. No, their pontifications were not unfamiliar. They
were reformulating that which the naysayers call “conventional
wisdom”, embellishing it with their oracular wisdom. Only fools
pay attention to the naysayers. There is no conventional wisdom.
We are buffoons by default. The Philosophy Doctor is performing
an act of genuine altruism: that of moulding the public opinion
in the interests of enlightenment, of Philosophy, of goodness
for its own sake. There are no ulterior motives whatsoever.

Here is why I am writing this: today I saw the light like never
before. But unlike the other people, it left me blind to
pretenses. Now I can no longer believe in appearances. They are
meaningless. I must touch things to assess their verity. Or at
least have some objective means of confirming their presence and
of understanding their features. This has made me pedantic, some
may say annoying and acerbic. Impossible to work with. I feel
no excitement about things as they are presented. Fortunately I
had the luck to have had prior experience of this society. I
already attained knowledge of the true value it attached to
social status, before this nagging tendency to ask for evidence
and to question conventions. Today, it would be impossible to
provide credence to the advances of the Philosophy Doctor.
Imagine my predicament, my misery! I was lucky to be
indoctrinated. Just as I have always been blessed to be immersed
in this milieu.

Make no mistake! This society is different. I can only pity
the naysayers who do not cherish what is given to them.

6. Nihilism

Now that you read the previous chapter, Status, let us switch
gears. Time to abandon the ironic tone and the hyperboles. On
with some analysis. While Status raises valid points, it
obscures them in nihilism. The reader is not drawn to the
arguments but to the overall negativity.

Nihilism can be understood as a way of interpreting phenomena
that is characterised by the following connatural tropes:

Binary thinking. Everything is parsed through a rigid
duality with no space for permeations or permutations in
between the extremes.

Forced homogenisation. To fit into the mould of perfectly
symmetrical extremes, all things must be brought under a
common denominator. Conceptual uniformity makes blanket
statements possible.

Juxtaposition between the actual and the ideal. Actuality
is compared to some ideal, only to be found wanting. The
ideal is, by definition, perfect. Reality is not. Which
results in a cycle of self fulfilling negativity.

The approach in Status conforms with these. There is no
nuance. The possibility of there being combinations of positive
and negative elements—with “positive” and “negative” being
relative to the benchmark used—is dismissed at the outset. The
topic under discussion is presented in overly broad terms, so as
to treat it as monolithic. That makes it possible to pass
general judgements about it. And, true to nihilism, the
overarching pessimism is the end product of deep seated, yet
misplaced idealism. Things are not perfect, therefore, the
rationale is, they are absolutely terrible.

For instance, consider Status’ statements against society’s
hypocrisy. Do they concern the entirety of society, some average,
a select few? Are they about everything society does, some
aspects of collective experience, or certain special cases? And
then, is this supposed hypocrisy contingent on circumstances that
condition the behaviour of situational agents and patients? Can
there be instances where it is not present? Furthermore, is it
true hypocrisy or a form of social convention which remains
consistent throughout and is not misunderstood by the members of
the social whole as something entirely different than what it is
supposed to be?

Nihilism adopts a scorched earth approach. All or nothing, which
all too often means just the latter. As such, the nihilist may
be starting from a sound or seemingly innocuous principle, say a
lofty ideal, only to ultimately work against it.

The nihilist inevitably becomes dogmatic. For that is what the
defence of an absolute system of normative claims on reality
entails. They work backwards from a conclusion. This is to be
contrasted with ideals that derive from inquiry into the
commonalities among the multitude of phenomena. The patterns,
the abstract structure. The nihilist’s ideals are preconceived
notions that are forced upon reality. And the nihilistic
outburst is the expression of the inner realisation of the
conflict between one’s view of the world as it ought to be and
the world as it actually is and can be.

From a political perspective, the nihilist has no direct
contribution to make. Extreme idealism can, at best, only keep a
fringe group focused on a narrowly defined task or utopia as an
opposition force that will never be in a position to implement
its view. Ideals are not implementable as such. Nihilism is the
opposite of the capacity to govern, as that presupposes the kind
of practicality that recognises the complexity of things, their
heterogeneity, and the possibility of incremental reforms that
add up to a bigger change. As such, the nihilist is actually
struggling between all that is ideal and nothing that is real.
Which leaves them with the latter.

As for the theme of this book, human’s self worth, the nihilist
unwittingly becomes the agent of the most extreme form of human
exceptionalism. This is typical among those who harbour nothing
but contempt for the world, as discussed in the first chapter of
this book. Now consider a less obvious example to reinforce the
point: the misguided Malthusian ecologist who truly believes that
the planet’s only hope is for humanity to go extinct. They are
assuming that they are the most enlightened of the species, both
because they are not preoccupied with their own survival, as all
living things, and due to humanity’s ostensibly unique inability
to adapt to evolving circumstances. Furthermore, they commit the
error of every other theory that subscribes to the concept of the
decontextualised human. Humanity can be removed from the
ecosystem and everything else will remain in tact. That is the
claim that humans are not inextricably bound up together with the
rest of the ecosystem. Which is a weird view, to say the least,
when it is well known that removing any one of the species from
its ecosystem will disturb the local equilibrium, often with
far-reaching ramifications. This is where the dogmatic part of
nihilism is fully fleshed out. They just know.

Nihilism is expressed as the posterior rationalisation of a
deeply rooted conviction that is unrealisable. The real does
not match the ideal. The ideal cannot be realised. Crisis ensues
and is then justified as certainty of nothingness, either in a
holistic sense, or for the subject of inquiry.

Here are some common examples, with the proviso that they could
be classified as over-reactions that tend to normalise over time:

The “helpless romantic” who hates every one and every thing
because they are not worthy enough and cannot deliver true
love.

The armchair revolutionary who ultimately functions as an
anti-revolutionary by dismissing in advance every attempt at
changing things as either futile or as yet another concealed
effort to preserve the status quo.

The naive Platonist who does not care about their hygiene or
what happens in the world in general, since everything is
supposed to be a fake representation of an unapproachable
domain of absolute Forms.

The key element of nihilism is not the view that nothing exists
or that nothing is real, etc. But rather that they are certain of
such a state of affairs. Unlike variants of scepticism, the
nihilist can only posit nothingness in the most dogmatic of ways
as certainty of nothingness, which itself would be a clear sign
of somethingness.

The sceptic can speak about the lack of meaning or of the
nonexistence of various forms and categories of being, by
following the analytical method alluded to in the chapter about
Godlessness. The sceptic can examine all available
knowledge/literature over a given subject to arrive at the
conclusion that fundamental issues remain unresolved and that
none of the presences that precondition the field of research
concerned are, in fact, verifiable. This would be an analytical
statement, not a conviction per se, but a reformulation of the
stock of available knowledge or a general characterisation
derived therefrom.

An analytical proposition can provide insight into hitherto
unseen items, which would colloquially mean that we learn
something new. And while that is a fair impression, analytics
remain essentially tautological. We learn to represent—to
reason, to talk about—the same things in new ways, and may have a
clearer understanding of their abstract structure as a result.

The sceptic arrives at their position by studying what is “out
there” while inquiring into the meaning or the interplay between
the subject and the object. The nihilist formulates their view of
what should be “out there” while claiming to know what is “in
here”.

Perhaps it would be fecund to posit nihilism as a type of
epistemological character; a defined way of dealing with
episteme. That would make the comparison to scepticism more
direct. A nihilist tends to express nihilistic views about every
area or topic they are concerned with. They tend to be
consistently nihilistic. Much like a sceptic tends to remain
inquisitive and dubitative in every field of study.

Nihilism “puts the cart before the horse”, as the old adage goes.
They get things in reverse, where reality must conform to the
ideal and not vice versa. They misunderstand the role of ideals
as (i) products of thought derived by discerning the common in
the multitude, and (ii) as guides to human thought and action.
The ideal is treated as the enemy of the good, rather than its
general target. Hence, the rejection of every minute improvement
or indication of positiveness, as decisively inadequate or
altogether a distraction that obscures the underlying vanity of
the whole venture, its worthlessness.

As for products of thought, it is worth addressing the Platonic
notion of Ideals in themselves. The inescapable constraint
imposed upon Platonic Idealism, or on other theories that presume
a decontextualised “mind” or purely intellectual being, is that
humans necessarily are part of the world, experiencing it through
the faculties their natural condition has endowed them with.
There is no human qua purely intellectual self, just as there can
be no absolute “I think” without connection to the underlying
natural condition.

It may then be the case that pattern is immanent. It is intrinsic
to things. The fact that humans (and not only) can discern
constants among the variables that constitute the totality of
input to the faculties of sense and the intellect may just as
well be because of a shared, built-in capacity to identify
commonalities in all that is, to eventually abstract them and
think of them as such. That means to be in a position to
identify the “abstract structure”. As such, universals are not
potentially recognisable by everyone because they must be
objectively present, but rather due to a common way of arriving
at them through the particulars. A shared process of parsing
information, if you will.

This is where the nihilist errs lamentably. The ideals they hold
are posited as objective categories that the world fails to
comply with. There is no means of easing this tension other than
examining its basic hypotheses. And, if that proves inconclusive,
then the only honest conclusion is to recognise uncertainty for
what it is and to remain open to the possibility that it might
cease to be upon further, more comprehensive research.

Pedantic and inconsequential details for the dogmatists who have
no time for leaving things unanswered…

7. Greens

In politics we often see the terms “environment” and “ecosystem”
used interchangeably. Same with “environmentalism” and
“ecology”, and their derivatives. While the political process
does not always require precision of statement, it must be noted
that the underlying values of these terms differ profoundly.

Environmentalism is, in essence, a variant of anthropocentrism
(human-centrism). Everything environs us. Human is at the
epicentre, conceived as something different or somehow special
compared to the rest of nature. This is an age-old tradition
that has been reformulated and embellished with new ideas
throughout history from ancient mythology to Humanism.

Even if only indirectly and despite whatever positives,
anthropocentrism has driven humanity’s incessant drive to exploit
nature without restraint. Animals are raised in the equivalent
of death camps, to be slaughtered en masse, because they are
“just animals”. Plants are being over-engineered to yield ever
greater quantities of crops, with numerous downsides to their own
well-being and the sustainability of the other species (economic
oligopolies and the feudalism of the patent holders
notwithstanding), the health of the soil, as well as that of
consumers.

In terms of first principles, the environmentalist does not want
to change the dynamic between humanity and the rest of nature.
Rather, the focus is on some narrowly defined targets, secondary
issues, such as carbon emissions and the accompanying financial
markets (carbon emission trading). In the same spirit, there is
growing emphasis on economic incentives to adapt to new methods
of doing business, such as relying on renewable energy, without
changing the underlying assumptions and aspirations of industrial
production at large. The entire system covering everything from
production-consumption-ownership is not considered at fault, nor
is it seen with suspicion. Just keep track of the carbon dioxide
and similarly marketable snippets of ‘green thinking’.

In contradistinction, the ecosystem includes humanity as yet
another factor of a broader whole. Humans are no more special
than grass, rats, bees… The uniqueness we want to attach to
ourselves, such as our relative intellectual superiority is, in
truth, a difference of degree, not category.

I guess a good analogy for understanding variations of this sort
is to think of life as akin to the output of the sound mixing
console. All those sliders and rotary controls have to be fine
tuned to produce a specific sound. A minor change modifies the
output. The more one tinkers with the controls, the greater the
degree of the change. In the same spirit, every instance of life
can be conceived as the end product of a specific set of
combinations between an array of interrelated factors. Hence the
differences in degree.

In the ecosystem everything is connected, for that is what
“system” means: a set of interlinked variables whose joint
operation produces local as well as emergent phenomena, which is
governed by system-wide and topical rules, and which sustains its
operations endogenously. Humanity cannot be without plants or
other animals, or the kind of weather equilibrium it has survived
in, the specific arrangements of the Earth’s and Moon’s orbits in
relation to themselves and towards the Sun, and so on.

Note here that “ecosystem” should be qualified as a set of
subsystems, each of which can be discernible in its own right.
So that we can speak of the Earth’s ecosystem, or the ecosystem
of a swamp, without having to talk about the universe. In the
same way we can think of the human organism—a human being—as
such, without having to explain each time that we are, in fact,
referring to a set of subsystems all the way from the atomic and
molecular levels to the organs and to their interlinked presence
thereof. Perhaps then, it is appropriate we find the correct
terms for each order of abstraction, though that might mean that
we run out of words depending on the degree of precision. Or
maybe we just use qualifiers, such as the “Earth’s ecosystem”,
“Europe’s ecosystem”, etc. But I digress.

Humanity is nothing without the rest of the ecosystem. The
dichotomy posited by environmentalists can only be entertained as
one of perspective, not ontology. Which would, however, imply
that the meta-narratives of anthropocentrism are altogether
dismissed, or at least thoroughly reconsidered.

Let us entertain the latter possibility. What would a revised
self image of humanity look like? I think it should start by
explicitly making the environmentalist binary an arbitrary
subject/object divide based on our vantage point. The ecosystem
environs us in a literal sense, without implications of any
[mystical] difference of category. Then, and even if we only
care about ourselves, we must acknowledge the fact that our very
existence is contingent on there being a robust ecosystem
suitable to our presence and that of every life form that
flourishes together with, or alongside, us. Which entails a
whole host of action programmes and necessary adaptations.

This, by the by, is not the same as deifying “mother nature”,
prohibiting any kind of interference out of some prejudice that
me might be disturbing the balance, or even expecting the rest of
the species to conform to human conventions (such as animal
“rights”, which in truth are human “obligations”).

While seemingly secular, the vision of the ecosystem as a
superior being, as the mother of all existence, rests on all
sorts of baseless assumptions. As concerns the evident
personification, we have no means of knowing whether the
ecosystem is just an aggregation of sub-systems with emergent
phenomena resulting from their interplay, or if it also is a
greater conscience or being whose inner mechanics we only
experience on the micro scale as seemingly inanimate systems
(same with how atoms do not exhibit consciousness—as far as we
know—but humans, who are made of atoms, do).

Such speculation does not really change the parameters of the
debate on which anthropocentrism rests. It just shifts the
focus, or reformulates the narrative. Instead of an extra-cosmic
god qua grand architect, as in biblical tradition, we have an
ever-present, yet still anthropomorphic or animal-like,
ubiquitous source of life.

These theories are not mutually exclusive and do not prejudice
the possibility that we develop an anthropocentric worldview that
is consistent with them, such as humanity being the chosen child
of mother nature, whereby the human soul has a transcendent
presence that is not found in the rest of the species in order to
fulfil some higher objective, etc.

The specifics will take us on a tangent. Our imagination is the
only limit here and it can keep us writing for the rest of our
life. The point is that anthropocentrism is, at its root, a
theological account. Whether the theology is of one kind or
another does not change this basic fact.

The problem with all theology is what I alluded to in the chapter
about Godlessness, namely that its claims cannot be verified in
an objective manner. Theology is like a game of luck where all
numbers win. Everyone can have their own theory and they may all
claim to be correct, as none can ever be proven right or wrong.

Overcoming anthropocentrism is about grounding human’s sense of self
in a narrower set of principles. While the task may seem
daunting, it is surprisingly simple and boils down to this: stick
to the facts. The humanity/environment distinction is one of
perspective. Human presence is contingent on there being an
ecosystem. Beyond those, the problem with anthropocentrism is
not about the way it is framed, but its political implications.

The human world is inherently complex. International economics,
finance, and monetary affairs are too much for one person to
grasp in the fullness of their scale. Let alone the interplay
between the multitude of decentralised actors, the implications
of diverging cultural-historical path dependencies of the various
peoples, the unique features of each society, both in terms of
social structures and political institutions, and so on.

Amid this bewildering complexity, one can be excused of
forgetting that principles are always simple. It is their
implementation or particularisation that introduces complexity.

For instance, the entire world could function within a single,
overarching constraint, which we may call the principle of
sustainability. Whether it is finance, or fiscal policy, or the
conduct of war, everything has to be gauged in terms of its
capacity to remain contained to its subject matter before it
creates deleterious, spill-over effects that would prevent a
return to the previous state of affairs. If any one of human’s
fields of endeavour becomes unsustainable, it produces a cascade
of catastrophic consequences which can, at the extreme, lead to
our annihilation or, at the very least, to its discontinuation.

Think of sustainable warfare, as tasteless as that term may be.
We cannot nuke each other into oblivion. That guarantees the
destruction of the planet and our annihilation. In this sense,
the end of war is only brought about by absolutely total war.

What about sustainable finance? The only reason the global
economic system remains in place is because it has yet to reach
peak saturation. It still finds outlets to release the pressure,
as it were, and thus survives its cyclical shocks/crises. It
survives by identifying new areas to exploit and to rollover the
problem; a problem that is incrementally aggrandised, yet whose
burden continues to be shifted around so that it remains less
obvious. Whatever calamities, poverty, austerity, precarity,
mass economic migration, are contained to various segments of
human society or geographic locales that seem to change
periodically. The system as such is yet to reach a terminus, at
which point it will no longer be sustainable in the sense of
merely being capable of continuing (so not “sustainable” in the
normative sense of desirability for society—it is well beyond
that, though that is an issue of extractive classes exploiting
the masses of people the world over, which is a major political
challenge, though not necessarily one that concerns ecology as
such).

And so on for every other human activity.

To this end, the ‘green’ themes are in need of a rethink. For it
is not the underlying theology that is at stake here. Nor is the
problem about turning “black industry” (production powered by
fossil fuel) into “green industry” (production powered by
renewable energy), or conforming to a target for carbon
emissions. While important in their own right, these are
secondary issues in the grand scheme of things. This is about
refactoring the entire framework of values pertaining to
production-consumption-ownership. And that involves everything
from the distribution of resources, the way costs and the
externalities of waste are handled, the degree to which private
property is considered untouchable, the narrowing of the scope of
intellectual property and patents, the decentralisation of
economic activity and the concomitant devolution of political
authority to the local level.

As such, ecology is only tangentially about reformulating the
narrative about human’s self worth. This is a matter of deciding
between a political order that, by and large, satisfies the
interests of the few more than those of the many, or a new order
that does not produce winners and losers in accordance with the
self perpetuating “winner takes it all” mentality.

What ‘green’ themes introduce is another aspect to this ever
pertinent debate. That the power balance within human society
also depends on actions or phenomena that seem to have no direct
effect on humanity.

Couched in those terms, revaluing our self image, so that we are
no longer some unique ‘essence’ that is distinct from the rest of
the ecosystem, may just be the first step in the long road of
reviewing our politics and the deep seated assumptions that fuel
them.

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